Promising Practices

The Promising Practices database informs professionals and community members about documented approaches to improving community health and quality of life.

The ultimate goal is to support the systematic adoption, implementation, and evaluation of successful programs, practices, and policy changes. The database provides carefully reviewed, documented, and ranked practices that range from good ideas to evidence-based practices.
Learn more about the ranking methodology.

Submit a Promising Practice

Midwestern Prevention Project

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana among adolescents.

Impact: Evaluations of the project showed that there was a smaller increase in students who intend to use cigarettes, alcohol, and tobacco within the upcoming months and that there were significant effects on the proportion of students reporting the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and tobacco.

Mind, Exercise, Nutrition...Do it! (MEND) Program (United Kingdom)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children

Goal: The goal of the MEND program is to reduce obesity levels in children by offering free healthy living programs that aim to encourage small lifestyle changes that improve health.

Impact: The MEND program was successful in reducing waist circumferences and BMI scores while increasing cardiovascular fitness, physical activity, and self esteem in children placed within the intervention group. The results of this study suggest that the MEND program is a promising intervention to combat rising child obesity rates.

Minnesota Family Investment Program (Minnesota)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Government Assistance, Families

Goal: The goal of the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) is to help families transition to economic stability by providing financial incentives to work.

Impact: Although MFIP cost Minnesota more than the ADFC welfare program, MFIP overall increased employment and wage earnings of participants by supplementing low income with welfare supplements. Most encouragingly, there is evidence to suggest the effects of the program persist after the program ended for the most disadvantaged.

More Than a Meal

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The objective of the study was to characterize the population of older adults on waiting lists for home-delivered meals and compare their health and health-related needs to the population of older adults living in the community.

Impact: Between baseline and follow-up, respondents receiving daily-delivered meals were more likely to exhibit:
• Improvement in mental health (i.e., anxiety)
• Improvement in self-rated health
• Reductions in the rate of falls
• Improvement in feelings of isolation and loneliness
• Decreases in worry about being able to remain in home

Mpowerment (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Men, Urban

Goal: The goals of Mpowerment are to mobilize young gay and bisexual men to reduce sexual risk taking, encourage regular HIV testing, and build positive social connections with peers.

Impact: The Mpowerment intervention successfully developed a mechanism to socialize young gay men to safer sex. Since this intervention relies primarily on volunteers, it is relatively inexpensive for communities to maintain and can continue to be made available for future generations.

Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Families

Goal: The goal of MDFT is to reduce adolescent drug abuse and increase self-efficacy in the teen population.

Impact: Systematic reviews comparing the effective of adolescent drug use interventions across studies found that MDFT reduces substance use, delinquency, behavior problems, and symptoms of anxiety and depression. The program has also been found to improve educational performance.

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) for Juvenile Offenders

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children

Goal: The ultimate goal of MST is to empower families to build a healthier environment through the mobilization of existing child, family, and community resources.

Impact: Compared to youth receiving usual-treatment services, those receiving MST were arrested about half as often in the post-treatment period. Recidivism rates were significantly less for MST-treated youth. Youth who received MST also had an average of 73 fewer days of incarceration.

New Beginnings (Intervention for Children of Divorce) (Arizona)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Teens, Women

Goal: New Beginnings promotes resilience in children after parental divorce by providing mothers and their children with group and individual-based sessions.

Impact: The New Beginnings program improves post-divorce adjustment outcomes such as interparental conflict, mother-child relationships, and coping strategies by targeting predictive behaviors.

New York State Smokers' Quitline (New York)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults

Goal: The New York State Smokers' Quitline is a free and confidential service that provides effective stop smoking services to New Yorkers who want to stop smoking.

Northern Michigan Diabetes Initiative: Provider Education Program (Michigan)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Rural

Goal: The overall goal is to reduce the prevalence of diabetes and improve the care of people with diabetes by improving provider education.

Impact: The results indicate that a half-day site visit with an experienced diabetologist can lead to sustained, improved glycemic and lipid control in previously-uncontrolled diabetic patients. The online iDose tool provides an easy way for healthcare providers to calculate insulin dosage.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.

A Good Idea meets the following HCI criteria:

The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
The program evaluation is limited to descriptive measure(s) of success/accomplishment (i.e., program participation rates, number of services/education sessions/radio messages provided). Note: oftentimes, the program has been newly implemented and a program evaluation has not yet been conducted. Programs that have not yet been evaluated, but which show promise in improving health or quality of life, are classified as Good Ideas until an evaluation is conducted.

An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.